goodbye
by cristina rosales
Summary: twenty two, the number of children who died for entertainment. the number of lives that will be forgotten and ended. [hiatus]
1. Marvel

**a/n: well, i guess i'm restarting this. it'll probably imitate bellicose blue's work of daily drabbles, and i'll try to update this daily. [drabble being 100 words.]**

 **so here's marvel. [don't worry glimmer's next]**

* * *

He's not a monster. He doesn't smirk when carving off dark-skinned fingers or run through burning trees with joy dripping from his smile. He doesn't dismiss the fading light in the boy's eyes or forget the pleading screams. He doesn't sharpen spears with the promise of blood, only with the name of survival.

[He's wishing and hoping that the nightmares dwindle; the faces and shrieks and blood will disappear, and he won't wake in cold sweat and choked screams.]

He only wants to survive.

[He shouted _I volunteer_ with sweaty palms and darting eyes because every misstep is another sister's life.]


	2. Glimmer

**for caesar's palace shipping week and the prompts whisper and gold.**

 **warnings: prostitution, non-graphic sex... the usual.**

* * *

glimmer and what could've been

Gold drips from her slender arms, swirling around her like a river. Gold cakes her lips, swollen from paid kisses. Gold envelops her, it's in the too-bright city lights and clinking coins and old patron that whispers nonsense into her gold encrusted ears.

"You're very beautiful," he mutters, "so gold and rich and—"

Her kiss quiets him. "Let's finish this," she purrs; the clock screams that her lateness to her next appointment isn't smart.

So gold rings press into tanned skin and moans softly fill the silence, and Glimmer stumbles over the usual motions, craving for another visit home.


	3. Clove

Her death was anticlimactic for such a dramatic girl.

It wasn't shrieks of pain and blood-stained smile and knives blocking swords and trumpets blaring. It wasn't betrayed, wide eyes and scared gasps and a sword and false kisses.

It was fluttering eyelashes and a dark shadow clutching a rock and an anguished cry for someone who wasn't quite a lover but not quite an enemy. It was clutching hands and begging for life and one desperate kiss.

It was a boy breaking and a girl dying and two pawns discovering that they can't win the game.

It's futile.


	4. Cato

sorry if this one is very jumping around.

* * *

a snapshot of cato

He wasn't always a monster. He didn't always chop children while laughing or taunted little boys about their _ohso precious dreams._

But now anger spills from his fingers and blood's woven into his hair. He's not a boy, he's a monster with an bronze heart and smile oozing ice. He's the sound of clashing swords and jeering taunts and thunder shaking the sky.

He's got iron fists and a frozen heart and fiery eyes, but locked in that fortress there's a boy with soft eyes and a glass heart.

And it's Clove saves him.


	5. District Three Female

district three girl [unnamed]

* * *

She's born on an unnaturally bright day for Three; the watery smog's pierced by weak rays of sunlight, and a birds sing light-hearted songs.

It's only fitting that she dies on an unnaturally bright day.

The puffy clouds scatter the sky, and the sun, the bright, beautiful sun, bathes the arena in godly light. And she stands rigid on the pedestal, hoping that her impossible odds will pull through, that she'll live another day.

But the silver knife still flies through the air and embeds itself in her chest.

Hope amounts to nothing in Panem.


	6. District Three Male

prompts: gray

* * *

district three boy

There's no colors in Three, only gray. It glazes the looming towers and blankets the overcast sky and stains the worn streets. It flakes from the resident's forced smiles and decorates their tattered clothing and taints their stale bread. It drips into his eyes, desaturating the orbs, and meanders into his thoughts until he can't dream of future without it.

He hates the gray.

When the giant boy clasps his neck and there's a echoing _snap_ and white pain blinds him, he's appalled.

Because death isn't hopeless black or blinding white, it's a gray nothing.


	7. District Four Female

**oh-my-god, i'm sorry for never updating the daily-ish drabbles, school and projects and swimming started. sorry! but here's a different take on these. :)**

prompts: tomb

district four female

District Four doesn't have graveyards. They do not bury the dead, for it's crueler to trap a soul under unforgiving rock than stab your best friend. Instead the dead return to their true home, the ocean, tethered on a wooden raft. Eyes water as friends and family gaze at the boat cradling the body until it's lost in the horizon, between ocean and sky.

But in the haste of rebellion and rebirth, they push her marred body out of their consciousnesses, forgetting to let the raft sail.

After the war [after her family dies] she's buried beneath dirt - alone.


	8. District Four Male

district three male

He doesn't know why no one volunteered for him.

Normally, two young men eagerly shouted condemning words and raced toward the stage, elbows stabbing and legs flying, but this year, only a little soul trembled as children stifled their sighs of relief.

Maybe it's because of his parents, and the privilege of sitting down to a full pot of oats, but no boy would pass up years of training to a paltry envy. Or maybe it's his fair skin and pale hair, unlike the bronzed and gold bodies of District Four. Or maybe—

 _Anyway_ , the white coffin's still shipped home.


	9. District Five Female

district five female

She's just trying to survive. And surviving means sprinting though the emerald trees, pressing wounds with white knuckles, and dining on raw nuts and chewed mint, wishing that her ever-rumbling stomach would be quiet. Surviving is counting the canons like she numbers the stars, memorizing each one that booms through the quiet arena. Surviving is cowering in cold caves, praying that the thumping boots and smirking murders pass her, _forget_ her. Surviving is swallowing salty tears and whispering to birds and toying silver knives.

Surviving means gasping goodbyes and biting dark berries. Because survival doesn't always mean winning.

Right?


	10. District Five Male

**a/n** well umm, this has obviously been abandoned for a long period of time, but here is the big revival. i am making myself update this daily, and i mean it!

–

for caesar's palace lbgtq week and the day transgender. please note this is using this tribute's _preferred_ pronouns, not his given ones. [also this is a double-drabble because i want to expand on this more]

prompts: darkness

–

district five male

[but not in her heart]

–

In the Capitol, it is never truly dark. The night lights up with the neon signs of clubs, the flicking windows of towering buildings, and lights of hundreds of parties. They illuminate the sky with a cloudy the curtains are drawn in her room, separating her from the lights of below, sparing her from their judgment.

The dress hangs from her thin frame as laundry hangs out to dry and the glittery bodice sags from her nonexistent breasts, but she's never felt prettier. She whirls around, mesmerized by how the skirt flows like a river, and a giggle slips from her mouth. Stepping closer to the mirror, she sighs as the dress dances through the air and smiles, a real one dripping happiness.

"This is who I am," she whispers and a the smile widens, it out stretches her District. She may die tomorrow, but at least she's lived today.

 _Creak_. She spins around, eyes wide with surprise and fear, but only a lilac-skinned escort stands in the doorway. The mauve lips cracks into a smile, she's not mad at the tribute stealing her dress, she looks _happy_.

"Oh, honey," she sings, "let me get you some real clothes."


	11. District Six Female

district six girl

When she was eight, she toppled from the boxcar she was scrubbing and hit her head. It wasn't a sunny day and the sky was an old cup of gray tea, she remembers.

The nights after, certain words flew around her. _"_ _Memory loss." "Amnesia"_

When the voice boomed her name and the crowd parted like water for oil, tears stained her cheeks; at least, she's pretty sure.

And her mother must've given her the wooden flower she presses between her fingers and indents into her palm.

But when the blood pools around her and everything hurts, she _knows_ she's died.


	12. District Six Male

district six boy

 _The world isn't fair_ ; he learns this mantra from day one. While parents mutter it and the District groans it, he tattoos it on his heart.

It isn't fair that the career stalking beneath his swaying branch clutches a razor-sharp sword and has years swinging the smooth hilt.

It's not fair he cradles his swollen stomach, dining on mint leaves and stale air while the Capitol vomits buttery bread and rich stews.

It's not fair his family huddles in front of the tv, praying for the impossible while the Capitol bet on his death.

But the world isn't fair.


	13. District Seven Female

district seven girl  
a snapshot of the forest

She loves the forest. She loves how the ancient trees stretch for the sky, wise branches reaching to brush the clouds. She loves when the birds harmonize to the tune leaving her lips, fluttering from branches singing lovely tunes. She loves how, even after a storm that pull up bushes and tear down tress, the forest still bursts with life, the mushrooms spring up in rings and the squirrels playfully scamper around.

She loves how the Capitol cannot touch the forest, _her_ forest; it's her sanctuary.

But when she sees the arena, a forest shaped by _their_ hands, she breaks.


	14. District Seven Male

district seven boy

District Seven believes in the gods, but he doesn't. They wake each morning and kneel before their windows, faces raised to the incandescent sun, and pray, muttering wishes and thanks to long-lost gods. In the silence of the forest, they'll bow their head before towering oak trees and whisper to the resting spirits in the wood. All in silence, of course, because the Capitol crowns themselves god, and severing another god is eternal damnation, yet they still worship.

And it's all bullshit to him.

If the gods did exist, why would they allow suffering to reign supreme in the world?


	15. District Eight Girl

district eight girl

Life is a patchwork quilt. In Eight, quilts are the history of the family, their heirloom, and tells stories not even the Capitol can snatch away form their clasped fingers. It's sewed by many, each patch stitched on with meticulous care and passed from grandmother to mother to daughter until it falls into the outstretched arms of a new-born baby. A baby who will soon clutch a sharp needle, resow squares of threadbare cloth, and restitch frayed edges.

But when the canon rings out, milk-pale fingers clutching a worn quilt to her frame unclench, the thin patches wet with blood.


End file.
